Warrior's Guide. Part 1. General information.

Stratics Veteran

To be a warrior you need only three things:
1. Do more damage
2. Take less damage
3. Heal damage you take

1.1. Damage Per Second

How fast you can kill monsters depends on your Damage Per Second (DPS).

1.1.1. Hit Chance

To do damage with your weapon you must hit. Hit chance is based on your weapon skill. There are five weapon skills: swordsmanship, fencing, macefighting, archery, throwing. If attacker and defender have equal weapon skill than hit chance is 50%. Hit chance has min 5% and max 95%.
Hit chance is also adjusted by attacker's Hit Chance Increase (HCI) and defender's Defense Chance Increase (DCI). If an attacker has 45% HCI and a defender has 0% DCI than hit chance is 73%. HCI and DCI are capped at 45%.
You can affect DCI of a target using Hit Low Defense (HLD). A successful hit decreases target's DCI by 25% (in PvM) for 8 seconds. If an attacker has 45% HCI and a defender has -25% DCI than hit chance is 95% (the cap).

It is very important to maximize your weapon skill. There is no any difference between weapon skills beside sets of available weapons. So selection of weapon skill is a part of weapon selection (see below).
You can decrease a target's weapon skill by Discordance.
You can increase your HCI by Lightning Strike (LS) - Bushido spell.

1.1.2. Damage Per Hit

To do more damage you need do more Damage per Hit. DPH depends on the base weapon damage. You receive a passive bonus to weapon damage from (values are for 100/max points): Tactics (69/82), Anatomy (55/65), Lumberjack (30/30, only for axes), Strength (35/50).
DPH is also adjusted by Damage Increase (DI) from items and some active skills. This part of DI is capped at 100%.

You can increase your DI by Divine Fury (DF) - Chivalry spell (subject by 100% DI cap).
You can increase your DI by Stone Form - Mysticism spell (NOT subject by 100% DI cap ???).
The most of other effects (like Battle Lust, Berserk, etc) are less useful because you can't set them up by pressing a hotkey.

This bonuses modify the base weapon damage. You see resulting damage in the character's stats window. If you maximized all this bonuses except lumberjacking then the resulting damage is about 4x times of the base weapon damage. For example, if you use a broad sword (13-17 damage) then you get 51-67 character base damage (CBD).

There are also Damage Modifiers (DM). Damage modifiers are multipliers of character base damage. The most common DM is Slayer. For example, undead slayer doubles characters damage against undeads. DM is capped at 300%. That means you can do 3x of characters damage.

Than faster you swing than more damage you do. Swing speed depends on the base weapon speed and attacker's Stamina. There is a cap for swing speed: 1.25 seconds per swing.
You can improve swing speed with Swing Speed Increase (SSI). SSI is capped at 60%.

Now all weapons with the same base damage have the same base speed. When you use slower weapon you do less Damage Per Second (DPS) in spite of you do more damage per hit. So to maximize your damage output you must maximize your swing speed.
When you have 120 stamina and use a 2.50s weapon than you need 5 SSI to get max swing speed. To keep it simple you can count that you need 30 stamina or 15 SSI for every additional 0.25s weapon speed. For example, with a 2.75s weapon you need 5 SSI + 150 stamina or 20 SSI with 120 stamina. If you can't get SSI and stamina enough for max swing speed than usually you should consider using a faster weapon.

Your abilities to heal yourself are limited so it's important to take less damage.

1.2.1. Hit Chance

To take less damage you need decrease attacker's hit chance. This is another reason to maximize your weapon skill.
Hit chance is also adjusted by attacker's Hit Chance Increase (HCI) and defender's Defense Chance Increase (DCI). If an attacker has 0% HCI and a defender has 45% DCI than hit chance is 34%. 34% compared with 50% means you take 32% less damage.
You can affect HCI of an attacker using Hit Low Attack (HLA). A successful hit decreases target's HCI by 25% for 8 seconds. If an attacker has -25% HCI and a defender has 45% DCI than hit chance is 26%. 26% compared with 34% means you take 24% less damage.

You can decrease a target's weapon skill by Discordance.

1.2.2. Chance To Block

You can parry an attacker's hit by a shield or by a weapon (that means you don't take damage from the hit). Chance to block depends on your Parrying skill. Having Bushido increase your chance to block with a weapon and decrease your chance to block with a shield.

It's advisable to have Parrying for all melee chars. It's not only decrease damage you take from physical attacks but also improve effects of parry-based Bushido spells(Confidence and Evasion). Some people think that parry becomes less useful when attacker has low hit chance but it's wrong because blocking 1 hit from 4 hits is the same as blocking 5 hits from 20 hits. In both cases you take 20% less damage over time.

There is a 5% bonus to your Chance to block if you get GM in Parry or Bushido.
There is a penalty to your Chance to block if your Dex is under 80.
Max values for chance to block are 40% with a two-handed (2H) weapons and 35% with a one-handed (1H) weapon or a shield.

You can't block with a ranged weapon. A thrower can use a shield but he gets a penalty for his hit chance. You can't block with a balanced 2H weapon.

1.2.3. Damage Reduction

The damage you take is affected by your resistances. The caps for resistances are 70 except 75 energy res for elves. Having 70 resistance means you take 30% less damage.
You can change your resistances caps using Refinement. Mathematically there is no difference between 45 DCI + 70 all res, 40 DCI + 71 all res, and so on. Assuming that there are just a few mobs with 100% elemental damage it's profitable to increase physical resistance cap by refinements. In this case you will take less damage if a mob has 20+ physical damage.

You can convert some damage taken back to health using Damage Eater. It really isn't damage reduction because at first you get full damage then some of the damage is healed. Damage Eater is capped at 18%. Individual Eaters (like Fire Damage Eater) are capped at 30% and don't stack with all type Damage Eater.

You can increase your resistances caps by Stone Form - Mysticism spell.
You can decrease an attacker's base damage by Discordance.
You can decrease (halve) an attacker's damage using Feint - Special Move.
Attunement - Spellweaving spell - absorbs physical damage.

+ It works automatically. You needn't to spend mana/time/attention/etc (except Curse Weapon that need to be recasted regularly).
+ If you do high damage you get back a lot of health.
- If you don't hit you don't heal. So you can't heal when you are stunned/frozen/calmed or you are running away.
- Due to Random Numbers Generator (RNG) you can miss few hits in a row (and don't get health when you need it hard).
- If you do little damage you get back little health (is not effective for new chars).
- You lose karma when you use necromancy spells

+ You can heal when your are stunned/frozen/calmed.
- There is a delay before getting effect.
- You can't use it when you're under Mortal Strike effect.
+ You can cure poison/bleed.
- You can't heal when you're poisoned (but you have some chance to heal).

1.3.4. Potions

In addition to potions crafted by alchemists there is Healing Stone than you can conjure by Mysticism spell.

+ You instantly get good amount of health.
- Due to cooldown you hardly can use it as a main way of healing.
- You need a free hand or a balanced 2H weapon to use potions.

+ You instantly get good amount of health.
- You need to stop to cast.
- Casting is interrupted by taking damage.
- Magery/Mysticism: you need unequip your weapon/shield if it isn't have Spell Channeling property.

You can't use potions as a main way too heal because they have cooldowns. But they are a good source of additional healing when your main way is not enough.
You can't use spells as a main way too heal because you need to stop to use them (that means you need to stop doing damage). They can be used as an additional/emergency healing but you probably will need to run away to use them so you will not be interrupted.

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